Policy & Advocacy

Serving with FoodCorps is in many ways about community organizing. Members build skills around mobilizing their communities towards a unified cause. We encourage alums to share their stories from service to help build the case for policies that support healthy food access and education. Many commit to building careers focused on this very work.

We hold an online course for alumni focused on expanding their knowledge of the political process and building advocacy skills.

Profiles

Rachel Spencer

AR ‘12

Rachel earned her undergraduate degree in public health from the University of Georgia, which served as her springboard for a career in healthy food and sustainable food systems. As an undergraduate she interned at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Environmental Health Services Branch, helped found UGA’s Office of Sustainability, and started her university’s Real Food Challenge chapter. With FoodCorps she served in Arkansas in the rural Ozark Mountains. Smitten with the rivers and people of Arkansas, she stayed after her service term to continue to build FoodCorps Arkansas as a FoodCorps fellow. Rachel recently earned her master’s in agricultural economics from the University of Arkansas. While in graduate school, Rachel was a founding member of the university’s Associated Student Government Graduate Student Congress, as well as a member of the FoodCorps Policy Institute.

“FoodCorps taught me what it means to have the courage to believe in a vision for a better world, and equipped me with the skills to build it. Nowhere will you make friends with a network of leaders that are more passionate, grounded, and sincere.”

Kendal Chavez

Farm to School Director, Farm to School Specialist/Nutritionist, NM Public education department

NM ‘13

Kendal Chavez works on the farm to school team at Farm to Table, a small nonprofit based in New Mexico that focuses on food systems’ impact on the local, regional, and national levels through strengthening community-based programs and policy. Prior to joining Farm to Table, Kendal served as a service member and state fellow for the FoodCorps New Mexico program. Kendal brings experience designing, facilitating, and supporting farm to school programs in local, state, regional, and national contexts. Her work is deeply rooted in community and the unique attributes, challenges, and perspectives that each place brings to the conversation around food. Kendal focuses on capacity, coalition-building, and systems change as the guiding principles of her work.